The Left Hand of Calvus

by L. A. Witt

The slowly rising eyebrow coincides with his fading grin. He beckons with the outstretched hand. “The money, Saevius.”

  “I . . . my apologies, Dominus, I . . .”

  “You’re not stealing from me, are you, gladiator?” he asks.

  “No, Dominus.” I swallow. “I foolishly did not negotiate terms before we started, and she left before I could collect. My apologies. It won’t happen again.”

  He scowls, and I’m about to offer my purse of winnings to compensate, but then Drusus releases a breath. “See that it doesn’t. Any woman beds one of my gladiators, she’ll damn well pay for it, or she’ll only wish the Furies got to her before I did.” He pauses, and the sternness in his expression softens a little. Amusement curls his lip as he looks me up and down. “Particularly certain gladiators in my troupe.”

  After the Ludi Appollinares, Drusus permits us to reduce our training temporarily so we can all recover, especially those among us who are wounded. As such, my absence from the training yard should go unnoticed when the lanista summons me to speak to him privately.

  I had hoped, anyway. But as I stroll toward the corridor leading to where the master waits, Quintus and Lucius notice. So do Sikandar and Hasdrubal. The men notice, and they whisper. If they get suspicious enough, if they even think there’s something untoward going on between me and Drusus, then the night they dragged me out into the training yard will be a smack with a wooden sword compared to what they’ll do now. No spy or snitch lasts long within a familia.

  But no gladiator lasts long if he defies his lanista, either, so I ignore the whispers and obey the summons.

  We’re alone. As he often does, he sits in his ornate chair with a cup of wine between his fingers. It’s difficult to look at him, has been since the Ludi Appollinares, but it’s even more difficult to look away from him. And nearly impossible to breathe. I’m going mad. I have to be. A lanista? Turning me into—

  I clear my throat. “You wanted to see me, Dominus?”

  “Yes.” He shifts in his chair, resting his chin on his hand. “Saevius, I need additional bodyguards.” He pauses, taking a drink from his cup. “And I’d rather take them from my troupe than spend the money for more.” His eyes meet mine with an unsettling amount of intensity. “Tell me, who among the familia would you trust?”

  I hesitate to answer. “I . . . beg your pardon?”

  “If you were to pick a bodyguard for me,” he says, “who would you choose?”

  I swallow. “Dominus, I cannot say with any kind of certainty that you’d be safe under the guard of any of the men in the familia.”

  “Is that so? Why?”

  “Because I still don’t know who is giving you reason to be suspicious.” I choose my words carefully. “With respect, I will not accept the responsibility of recommending a man who might be planning to do you harm.”

  He tilts his head a little, but doesn’t appear displeased—or pleased, for that matter—with my answer. “What about you?”

  “Me, Dominus?”

  “Yes. Would I be able to trust you as a bodyguard?”

  “Of course,” I say quickly. “But as your bodyguard, I can’t be in the training yard with the other men. I can’t watch them as you’ve asked me to do.” Or as Calvus has told me to do.

  “Wise, Saevius. Very wise.” Drusus sets his wine cup aside and stands. “You know, you’re unusual among the gladiators.”

  “Of course I am,” I say. “I’m left-handed.”

  Drusus throws his head back and laughs. “Yes, yes, so you are.” His amusement passes, and he’s back to scrutinizing my eyes in that way that weakens my damned knees. “I don’t know what it is that’s so different. There is something, though.”

  I draw back a little. “Is that . . . good?”

  “I don’t know. Is it?” He pauses, looking right into me. “Are you afraid of me, Saevius?”

  “No,” I lie. “I respect you, but I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Seems most men in the familia are.” He laughs, and it’s almost a drunken sound. “I’ve heard some of them say I’m the man other lanistae tell their children about to scare them.”

  I chuckle, but he’s not far from the truth. “Your reputation seems a bit exaggerated to me.”

  “Does it?” he asks.

  I nod. “You’re fair. Reasonable.” Even if you can make a grown man tremble with a look.

  Drusus’s eyebrows lift. “Can I? I’d never noticed.”

  My throat tightens. I hadn’t intended to say it out loud, but apparently I did.

  “Do I have that effect on all the men in the familia?” he asks.

  I clear my throat, trying to get my breath moving again. “I . . . it’s only what I’ve heard.”

  “So I don’t have that effect on you?”

  Our eyes meet.

  I can’t move. Whatever effect he had on me during the Ludi, he has it now, and it doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why looking at him like this makes my skin tingle. Why I can’t catch my breath. It isn’t fear. I know what it means to fear a master, and I do fear him, but this? This isn’t fear.

  And I don’t understand at all why he’s looking back at me like that. Or what it is I’m seeing in his blue eyes that weakens my knees this way. Or why his intense calm suddenly reminds me of an Egyptian who’d been nearly as dangerous—and impressive—in my rack as he was in the arena.

  The tip of Drusus’s tongue darts across his lower lip.

  “Drusus . . .” I whisper, not entirely sure why, and the sound of my voice speaking his name sends a shiver through me. Then I realize what I’ve said and quickly add, “Dominus.”

  Abruptly, he breaks eye contact and muffles a cough. “Keep watching the men.” His tone returns to the sharp voice of a lanista. “I’m trusting you, Saevius.”

  I force some breath into my lungs. “Yes, Dominus.”

  “I need an answer soon,” he says tersely. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  “Understood, Dominus.”

  He doesn’t look at me. “Dismissed.”

  The encounter leaves me unsettled. I have no doubt he’s losing patience just as Master Calvus is, but that isn’t what has me reeling as I walk back toward the training yard. Whatever happened in those still, silent moments before he dismissed me, I can’t help thinking it’s just as dangerous as the spying he’s ordered me to do. The spying Calvus has ordered me to do. If the gods don’t watch over me, I’m more and more certain I’m going to end up on the wrong end of a sharp blade.

  “Saevius.” Philosir’s voice draws me out of my thoughts, and as I turn toward the water trough where he’s drinking with some of the other men, he says, “Where’ve you been?”

  “Oh, I—” I pause, glancing over my shoulder. “Drusus asked to see me.”

  Quintus and Iovita furrow their brows and exchange an unreadable look as I join them at the trough.

  Philosir eyes me. “What’s he want with you this time?”

  “Aye, Saevius.” Iovita finishes the water in the ladle, then hands it to Quintus as he says, “The master does seem rather interested in you.”

  “Does he?” I laugh quietly and get some water for myself. “I’ve noticed nothing of the sort.”

  “Iovita’s got a point, you know.” Quintus peers at me over the top of the ladle. “The master’s awfully chummy with you.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “You’re imagining things.”

  “All of us?” Lucius says. “You think we’re all stupid? Drusus has never had an interest in any of us before.”

  “Not like Crispinus did,” Quintus says with a nod. A sly grin curls his lip. “Guess he’s taken a fancy to you, has he?” The humorous tone is edged with something else. An unspoken accusation.

  “It’s nothing like that.” Though what I wouldn’t give to—what? What is wrong with—

  “If it ain’t that,” Lucius says, jarring me back into the conversation, “then what is it?”

  “Does it matter?” I ask.
>
  “If it doesn’t, then it shouldn’t matter if you tell us.” Iovita’s eyes narrow. “The man is forever summoning you from training to his private chambers. You’re in his presence as often as you’re in a sparring ring.” Iovita pauses. “If he ain’t calling you into his bed, then what’s going on, Saevius?”

  Before I can answer, Lucius glares at me. “He got you watching us now or something, so you can find out who’s talking to someone on the outside?”

  “Watching you?” I raise my eyebrows. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Well,” Quintus says with a shrug, “as often as he calls you away from the rest of us, including his bodyguards? Tell us why we shouldn’t be concerned.”

  Drinking slowly and silently, Philosir watches me from his place between Quintus and Lucius. All four of the auctorati are staring intently at me, as if their eyes can pry the truth out of me.

  The woman’s lover is a citizen or a freedman. I look from one man to the next. Which means he could be an auctoratus. Lucius. Quintus. Philosir. Iovita. Is it one of you?

  “Well, Saevius?” Lucius asks sharply. “What’s your business with the master?”

  “My business with the master is whatever the master demands of me.” I lower my chin and my voice. “If he’s so taken with me, then why does he take me behind closed doors to remind me he’s watching me? And that if I make another wrong move, I’ll be lucky if I leave the pit alive after my next visit?”

  The men exchange glances.

  “He suspects you’re the one?” Quintus asks.

  “Apparently so.” I drain my water, slam the ladle back onto the rack, and glare at each of the men in turn. “And by the Furies, if it’s one of you, and I take a single lash on your behalf, you’ll wish you’d come forward the day Drusus found the scroll.”

  Philosir and Quintus draw back. Lucius and Iovita exchange looks again.

  “You really think it’s one of us?” Lucius asks with just enough amusement to make me want to cut his throat.

  I shrug. “Well, who else would it be?”

  “Could be anyone,” Quintus says. “Don’t have to be an auctoratus.”

  “So what if a bunch of us contracted at once?” Philosir says. “Could be any of the men taking advantage of Drusus being suspicious of us.”

  “Could be any man indeed.” Iovita turns to me. “So why is Drusus so suspicious of you?”

  I look right back at him. “I don’t know, Iovita. Why is he?”

  His eyebrows jump. “How would I know?”

  “How would I?” I shrug again. “If I fucking knew, I’d tell him to watch one of you lot and leave me in peace.”

  They all stare at me. The noise all around us continues, but here beside the water trough, everyone is silent.

  Then Iovita laughs, and all the others follow suit. After a moment, so do I.

  “Tell him to leave you in peace?” He shakes his head. “I’d cut off a limb to see that, Saevius.”

  “Aye,” Quintus says. “Make sure we’re all there for that one.”

  I chuckle, but say nothing.

  Gods, watch over me.

  Verina and Kaeso return to the ludus a few days after the conclusion of the games. As soon as the gates are open, the boy yanks his hand away from his grandmother and sprints from the litter into the training yard. Verina shakes her head and laughs, following him into the ludus.

  The men show off their wounds from the arena to Kaeso, who inspects every bruise and suture with all the wide-eyed fascination a young boy can muster. He laughs at outlandish tales of minor scratches being the work of wild leopards and bruises coming from hand-to-hand combat with men twice their size.

  “You don’t believe me?” Hasdrubal scoffs, feigning offense. “Here, lad, let me show you how he got me.” He hands Kaeso a wooden sword and a small, round shield, and then leads the boy into one of the sparring circles.

  “Keep your guard up, lad.” He grins at the boy and taps his shield with another wooden sword. “Protect yourself. Arms, legs, everything.”

  Verina smiles as she watches Kaeso playfully spar with the men, and I surreptitiously watch her. She’s never betrayed any emotion here in the ludus, but Calvus insists there’s a man who has her affections. Gods help her if it’s true; gods help me if it isn’t.

  Then she turns her head, and her expression changes. She sees someone I cannot, someone just outside my line of sight. It’s clear because the moment she looks, her smile wilts and her eyes fill with pure, painful longing.

  My heart beats faster. So Calvus was right. There is a man here at the ludus who’s drawn her away from her husband.

  Careful not to bring attention to myself, I let my gaze slide in the direction the woman is looking, searching for the object of her attention.

  He steps out from behind the wall that had blocked him from me and not Verina, and in an instant, my blood turns cold.

  Drusus.

  Drusus is the one?

  No, maybe it’s one of the bodyguards. Perhaps Verina is involved with one of them.

  But then Drusus stops. His lips pull into a thin line.

  He isn’t looking at her, though. He watches Hasdrubal and the boy. Once, his eyes dart toward Verina, and perhaps I’ve spent too much time cataloging every nuance of Drusus’s face and expressions, but even from twenty paces, the pain in his eyes is palpable. I swear I can see the ache beneath his ever-present leather armor.

  Abruptly, Drusus gestures at his bodyguards, and as one, the three of them turn and go back the way they came.

  As soon as they’re gone, Verina purses her lips and releases a breath before she turns her attention back to her grandson.

  Oh gods . . .

  I pull my own attention away and go to the water trough to moisten my suddenly dry mouth. I cannot be sure until I’ve seen something more than a couple of exchanged glances. If I breathe a single word of suspicion to Calvus, Drusus will be killed, and if I hint to Drusus that I have any reason to care that he’s involved with Verina, then it’s my throat on the line.

  But it makes sense now. Calvus must have had some suspicion she was involved with Drusus, or with some other man besides a gladiator. He knew somehow that her lover wasn’t a slave, and no man of his stature, especially not one as volatile as Calvus, will stand for his wife cavorting with a citizen or a freedman. Especially one as lowly as a lanista.

  A lanista and a citizen like Drusus.

  And where does this leave me? The game has changed since Calvus sent me into this ludus, and there are two men involved who won’t hesitate to spill blood if they’re crossed. My blood, or each other’s.

  In the beginning, my task was simple. Find Verina’s lover, give his name to Calvus, and be done with it. But that was before I suspected the lover’s name was Drusus, and before Drusus ceased to be the legendary lanista and instead became a man I’ve learned to respect. A man whose respect I have also gained. Along with, perhaps, something more than that.

  Give me a single reason to believe you’re not doing precisely as I’ve ordered, Calvus’s whisper raises gooseflesh on my arms, or that you’ve breathed my name within the walls of the ludus, and I will see to it the magistrate asks Drusus if he received the full seven hundred sestertii. Am I understood?

  I may have gained the respect of Drusus, but like Calvus, he won’t tolerate theft or deceit from any man. Particularly not from a man he’s entrusted with finding out who in the familia is deceiving him.

  But if Drusus is the man fucking Verina . . .

  I blow out a breath. I can’t do or say anything until I’m absolutely certain, which means I’ll have to follow him. I’ve seen him leave the ludus alone, so he’ll likely do it again.

  All I can do is watch and wait.

  And what if my suspicions are correct? Then what?

  Gods, give me wisdom. Which man do I betray?

  Drusus comes and goes from the ludus. Sometimes alone, sometimes with his bodyguards, but usually while I’m sparring a
nd can’t follow him without drawing attention to myself. I keep an eye on the back gate, though, watching for him to leave on his own, and finally he does while I’m between matches.

  I slip out of the yard and follow him through the gate. He looks back every few paces, checking beside and behind him, but he doesn’t see me. There are enough people out and about that I can easily duck between them and keep myself hidden from his view. The streets are not so crowded that I lose sight of Drusus, not so empty I stand out to him.

  The streets fan away from the Forum and into the market, and in the space of half a city block, the crowd goes from thin enough to camouflage me to thick and chaotic. Drusus disappears, reappears, disappears again. I think I’ve lost him once, but a flicker of movement puts him back where I can see him, and I continue following him.

  A cart’s wheel gets stuck on one of the stepping stones in the middle of the street, and the crowd is almost impenetrably thick around where the cart is stopped like a boulder in a river. People shove, shout, and it’s only with some effort and cursing that I make it past.

  I stop. Search the crowd. There are plenty of people in gray, but not a gray hood. Not . . .

  There.

  He leads me through the marketplace to a rundown building not unlike the ramshackle whorehouses over by the amphitheatre.

  He pauses on the doorstep and I duck just out of his sight behind a butcher’s booth. Drusus looks this way, the other way, this way again.

  Then he disappears into the building.

  I stay back in the shadows, casually watching people come and go in the marketplace.

  Shortly after Drusus goes into the building, another hooded figure approaches from the other direction, conspicuous in the desire to be inconspicuous. Slender, feminine fingers hold the hood close to her face, and she keeps her head down, standing out amongst those whose heads are high and hoods are back.

  Inching closer to the building where Drusus presumably waits, she looks around, and the hood’s opening parts just enough to reveal her face.

  Verina.

  I press my back to the stone wall and push out a breath. So it’s true. Drusus is the man Calvus sent me to find. The lover of the Lady Laurea.